


shuffle: before the shadows

by Lauren (notalwaysweak)



Category: Dark Tower - King
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-07-03
Updated: 2002-07-03
Packaged: 2017-10-05 15:45:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalwaysweak/pseuds/Lauren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Love interests for Roland of Gilead always interest me.</p><p>Dedicated to Lady Togemon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	shuffle: before the shadows

**Author's Note:**

> Dark Tower characters belong to Stephen King.

I feel the gnawing of my addiction deep in my gut and ignore it again; every time I notice it I have to push down and lock away the feelings, the emotions that say _Fix, fix, fix_ over and over. They are so hard to dismiss, but with every day, every hour that passes, the feelings grow less.

My hair was black to begin with, but it feels as if it might have become blacker over the past few days here. All of me feels a little darker, inside and out. The sun here is hot, and my skin, where it isn't burnt, has tanned.

It must have nearly been a week now that I have been here. The medicine I've been dosing him with, the gunslinger who has changed my life so radically, so quickly, is almost gone, and when I began giving it to him there was only enough for a week, maybe ten days. That means I've been trekking along this endless waste of sand, dragging the travois with him on it, for a week, and haven't fixed in that whole time.

Strangely enough, I feel proud of myself. I've seen men die from withdrawal symptoms. I think I'm too busy for withdrawal. Manhandling the travois around deceptively firm-looking drifts of sand which, when I step on them, are about as firm as jelly. Occasional rest breaks, sips of water for me, for him. Shooting the creepy-crawlers that come out of the waves at sundown, asking their endless chirruping questions and searching for a nice tasty toe or two. Home is a dream for me now.

It's getting dark now. Time for a meal soon; we'll be reduced to dropping rocks on those lobstrosities soon, and I don't fancy one of them mistaking _me_ for dinner instead of the other way around, but tonight I think we'll be lucky and have a nice bullet in the head for one of them. Or at least the region that passes for their heads. I don't know that they really have one. Just a beaky sort of thing, a gnashing maw that would like nothing better than a nice piece of junkie thigh for a meal.

The gunslinger isn't sick tonight. I think he's feeling better after we saw the door. Well, since _he_ saw the door. I didn't see it for hours after he did. The guy has got eyes like a hawk's. Maybe he inherited them from the hawk he once had, David. Or maybe it was some other name. He's raved a lot over the past days, and it's only been the last couple that he's even been well enough to walk.

He's the one to start the fire tonight, while I go down to the high-tide line twenty yards away. Look for the crawling shadow in the darkness, and _KA-BLAM_, there's tonight's dinner.

'You got one,' says Roland as I drag the corpse up the beach towards where he has already made a respectable campfire. On the first night it took me an hour and a lot of swearing to get a piddling little flame going, matches or not. I envy this bastard his years of experience, especially since it looks like I'm going to be stuck here without them for, well, probably the rest of my life.

'Yeah, I got one. They're a bit hard to miss. There're about a thousand of the buggers down there.' I dump the ugly thing onto the sand and glare at it. 'It'll take about an hour to cook. That's how long it took last time.' Not that time, or anything like it, is anything we have to worry about out here. The only appointment we have to keep is the one with Roland's Tower -- and, of course, with whoever waits beyond that next door, so far ahead on the endless beach. 'Have you got a stick?'

Instead of spitting the monster and cooking it, as I have been doing, Roland methodically shells it and wraps chunks of the meat in seaweed. Then he tucks the ugly lumps into the coals and covers them over with more coals, then chucks a dirty great log on top of it all.

'When the log's burned away. That's when we'll eat.' His steel-blue eyes regard me calmly. I turn away and pretend to be listening to the endless _Did-a-chock? Dum-a-chum?_ from further down on the beach, pretend to be ignoring the complaining grumbles of my empty stomach.

'Why? Why me? Why did it have to be me who was called through your stupid door?' I say to my feet.

'It was _ka_,' the steady voice says from behind me. 'As I am sure you well know by now.'

'Kaka,' I say. 'When do I get the economy flight home? I'm sure your guys wouldn't spring for first class.'

'There is no going home. I too have left my home.'

'You haven't left your _dimension_. Or whatever. One minute I was in my own place, the next I was here. It's different for you. You've travelled to get here. You're going somewhere. You're not stuck in a strange world with some freak who keeps talking about destiny.' I suddenly realise that there is wetness on my face, and it's not from sea spray.

The next thing I know, he has his hand on my shoulder and is turning me to face him. His eyes blaze with emotion, and I realise something; his _ka_, his destiny, that I have just made fun of, is everything to him. More than everything. This man has no love in him, save that for his precious Tower.

In his eyes I see it: tall and black, or perhaps a dark, dark grey, rising out of a field. The field is filled with roses, or blood, or both. I see myself in his eyes, as well, and understand with a sudden stunning shock that, despite this all-consuming lust he has to find the Tower, there is a corner of his heart that has always been devoted to his friends. Most of his friends are now long-dead -- Alain, Cuthbert, Jamie de Curry and all the others he has mentioned over the past week. I am now the only friend he has left, and I am a pathetic one.

'Oh...' The sigh softly expelled from my lungs is heavy, and I realise I have been holding my breath.

'Yes.' He doesn't let go of my shoulder, and I see that he knows what I have read in his eyes. 'You are my friend. Together we form a _ka-tet_ of sorts, a very small one. But that may change, Eddie Dean. It may change within the next day.' He turns his head away for a moment, glancing up the beach to where the second door is no longer visible in the darkness, then looks back at me. His other hand rests now on my other shoulder as he kneels in front of me where I sit on the sand. 'But until then, it is, as you know, just you and me... and the poison-monsters, of course.'

'If _they_ were a part of my _ka-tet_, I'd leave,' I say only half jokingly. Why isn't he taking his hands off my shoulders? The right hand, shy two fingers, swathed in a swatch of dirty cloth... the left, rough-skinned and heavy.

'Eddie, there is something you must know, if we are to travel together,' Roland says, looking into my eyes again.

Oh God. What is it now?

'Yes?'

'The members of a _ka-tet_ must love one another. No... don't look at me like that. I mean it in a spiritual sense, not a physical one. ' He raises an eyebrow, then asks bluntly and for no reason that I can see, 'Have you ever loved a man, Eddie?'

'I...' I try to clear my throat. Why is he staring at me like this, can't he see how it is making me feel? Those blue warrior's eyes, his solemn face, like an idol, like a god. 'I don't...'

'You _do_ know what I mean. I don't mean physically. I mean mentally, the same way you might love a woman.'

I think. It doesn't take long for a memory to come rising to the surface of my mind. It's followed by another, then another. Admiration, affection, devotion, dedication, all those things. Friends of my brother, friends of my own -- maybe _friend_ of my own, I didn't have many friends who weren't Henry's friends first -- people on television, musicians... but this isn't quite what he means, and I know that he really means to be _in_ love with someone. And for God's sake, I haven't even really been in love with a _woman_ that way. Unless heroin is a woman, and maybe she is -- sly, deceptive, addictive, yes, heroin could be a woman.

'I think I know what you mean, Roland, but I don't think I've ever done it before.' I try and look casual. 'Listen, shouldn't you get some rest? You've been on your feet for hours, and you're not used to walking...'

'I have walked many miles more than this beach, Eddie.'

'I mean because you're _sick_!' I lift my own hands and cover his with them. 'Please, Roland, you're freakin' me out. Sit down. Have a beer. Have a j, for God's sake. Just _quit staring at me_!'

He finally lets go of my shoulders. Something like an inexpressible sadness has come into his eyes. 'I cry your pardon, Eddie,' he says softly. 'I forgot myself... I have been haunted by the faces of my friends these past few days, and I forget that you have not travelled so far with me.' He sits down on the sand, facing out to sea, and doesn't look at me for some minutes.

'Look... if you want to talk about something...'

'I just need you to know that being part of my _ka-tet_ can sometimes lead to trouble, and there is a good chance that whoever sets out on a quest with me may not live to see the end of it. So, when you learn to love anyone or anything other than your devil-weed, your _heroin_, then you must also be prepared to lose it as you lost your drug.' He still isn't looking at me. If I'm lucky, he's talking to the lobstrosities down on the beach. I don't want to hear this. He's still scaring me.

'Roland...'

'Eddie, I have known you only for a short time, and for part of that time I have been... not myself, yet I already know that I can love you the way I loved Cuthbert, the way I loved Alain and Jamie and all of my other friends. You may think it strange, but it is the way of _ka_ to be strange, and I do not expect you to understand immediately. Have you ever been in love with a woman?' I have to admit that I haven't. 'Then it will be harder for you to understand. But if you would give up your life for another... that is part of what I am trying to explain.' He sounds frustrated. It must be hard, trying to explain this to someone from another world... and I bet he hasn't had to do it before, either.

But I know what he's talking about, suddenly. I know what he's trying to explain to me. To be part of a _ka_-_tet_ is to be part of one... one being, one entity, one whatever... and he's already prepared to accept me as part of himself. He barely knows me... this would never happen anywhere like New York... but it's so right, the feeling that he's right and I belong here with him. I can feel it too, now.

'Roland, please look at me.' Now it's my turn to try and get his attention. '_Please_. I know what you mean, now. I know what you're trying to say. Don't...' I swallow, my dry throat clicks like the claws of the lobstrosities. 'Don't you think that I feel it too?'

He turns to me, and I see a sight to wonder over: old long tall and ugly is crying. Real tears are sliding down his cheeks and becoming lost in the day-old stubble. I remember scraping the bristles from his cheeks this morning, using his knife, slowly, slowly, stopping and waiting for him to stop moving before doing the next little scrape, and the next. I know his face almost as well as I know my own, now.

I take this face that I know between my hands, my palms sliding against that shadow of stubble, sliding up to wipe away the salty wet tracks away, sliding around to cup the back of his head and tilt it forward to brush my lips against his forehead. And this feels right, as well. If he won't listen to me, then maybe I can show him.

'Eddie,' he says again, the word barely making it out of his mouth. 'What...'

'Oh, Roland, I know you're a gunslinger and noble and wise and all that, but can't you just shut your mouth for a second?' I try to put a little irritation into it, but it comes out differently. His tongue snakes out and wipes across his bottom lip, and right now all I want is to taste his lips, to see if his journey has killed every part of his spirit or if there's something still left.

And that's what I do. I move in closer to him, so neither of us have to strain to reach each other, and hesitantly, almost reverently, press my lips to his. For a long moment I think this is all one-sided, that I'm going to have to pull away and feel like a fool and tell him tomorrow morning if he asks that he only dreamed it, but then his lips shift against mine and he's kissing me back, a lot more tentative than I would have expected, but also without fear. His lips part and his tongue grazes across my lips, seeking entrance, and I let him taste my mouth -- not that, after a day's walk and little water, it would taste any good -- and taste him back. It's not so bad as I had thought -- sort of smoky, from breathing the air near the fire. An outdoors taste.

His hand comes up and cups the back of my head, fingers ruffling the shorter hairs near the nape of my neck, and I'm aware of his missing fingers, but he doesn't seem to be - he's touching me like he's got a whole hand to do it with -

\-- and like I'm some sort of valuable china piece, one to be handled carefully and wondered over.

I've never felt like this before. It must be true, then; he really _does_ care. And I know I care about him. What does this mean? What does it all mean? Does it matter?

Roland lets me go, and I pull away slowly. His eyes look like they're shining, but it's the reflection of the fire. I look down at the fire... the log he put there as our timer for dinner looks barely blackened on the underside, and is untouched on the top.

'Eddie.'

I have _never_ heard his voice so gentle. And I never do again.

'Eddie, come with me.'

* * *

We spread out a blanket a ways from the fire, on the side away from the creepy-crawlers, and just sit side by side for a short while, watching the flames... and making sure that the monsters aren't going to come and get us. His hand is tucked around mine, and the missing fingers don't make a difference there either... our fingers still interlace just as neatly.

But holding hands, it seems, isn't going to be enough for either of us tonight. Something is in the air. We need something more.

He doesn't need to ask if I've done this with a man before. He can see that I haven't, and I can see that he... he has. I can feel it, something in the dexterous way he unbuttons my shirt perhaps, or how his hands slide inside to hold me close to him, his mouth devouring the side of my neck hotly. I have a lot of trouble holding still.

'Are you sure about this?'

Yes. No. I don't know. Ask again later.

'Yes.'

His eyes are half-lidded as he looks down in concentration, not needing to take the belt from my waistband because it's already gone to the travois, moving straight to the buttons instead, pushing the first one through its hole, then looking up again to see my face, to see if everything is still all right. I nod for him and he goes back to his task, two fingers and one thumb working as deftly as four and one. I lift up so he can drag my jeans down, my underpants going with them, and I feel a touch of embarrassment... I'm already hard, and I wonder if he thinks that I only get that way over men.

Clothing no longer an issue, he nudges my bare thighs apart and kneels between them, lowering his head, his mouth closing over the head of my cock and sucking lightly. Light as this first touch is, my hips buck up, out of my control, but he plants his hands firmly on the tops of my thighs, pinning me down, then takes me all the way into his mouth.

His mouth is heat and soft and hard and slick and I have to use every bit of my willpower, directing it all to my groin, to keep from exploding then and there. My hips jerk up again, and he leans harder with both his hands and his mouth, and I moan quietly, my head dropping back onto the blanket, eyes closing. His tongue slides along the underside of my cock, from the root to the tip, and I fist up two handfuls of blanket and try not to grab his head and force it down.

There's words coming out of my mouth. I can't tell exactly what all of them are, and he probably can't either, but I know that the more he sucks the more I'm begging, and calling his name, and wishing he'd stop tormenting me.

And then, out of nowhere, he stops. His mouth draws up and away in one long last pull that makes me cry out, and doesn't come back.

'Roland -- what--'

'Quickly.' He unbuckles the holster at his side, considers it briefly, then lays it carefully on the sand -- and it's the only second of calm I see. Then his hands are back up at the collar of his own shirt, pulling buttons through holes with complete disregard for whether they stay on or not. His hands go to his own waistband, dragging down the zip, undoing the button, dragging them off -- and he's not wearing anything underneath, his own cock engorged with blood.

And then he lies down on the blanket, flat on his face, legs parted, arms folded under his head. 'Quickly,' he says again, and I'm about to protest when I realise what he already knows... that he is too weak to be dominant this time, and that I must be in control.

I move to kneel between his legs, his saliva still wet on my cock, and touch him with one hand. He jumps. I move my hand up to his entrance, venturing to slip the tip of one finger inside, and he jumps again, and growls something into his folded arms. I cease teasing and reposition myself, one hand beside his hip for balance, one to guide my cock, the head nudging its way in, pushing through a tight ring of muscle, and then sliding in a little easier as he tries to relax that muscle to let me in.

Finally I lie atop him, buried to the hilt, everything seeming a lot tighter than being inside a woman. I have to move slower than with a woman, fearful of hurting him. My hips rise and fall steadily. I feel like this is part of everything he talked about. How much more can two people become as one?

My slow strokes are apparently not good enough... he bucks up against me and I relent and drive deeper and harder and faster. He is clenching fistfuls of the blanket as I did earlier, and I can hear his voice urging me on, calling for more... and finally, crying my name as he squeezes tight around me, his entire lower body spasming with the force of his climax. His orgasm -- and perhaps my name coming form his lips, so passionate -- brings on my own, and I feel that shooting flow of sensation, I feel myself pulsing inside him, and he feels it too and gasps.

We lie still for a moment, spent and exhausted, and then I slide back out of him, the exit infinite times easier than the entrance. There's nothing to clean up with, and so I take a flaming stick from the fire and walk down to the water's edge, scaring the lobstrosities away as I go. I kneel in the shallows and let the tide do its work, and after a moment Roland joins me, sitting cross-legged in the water, holding a second firebrand.

At present, there is no need for words. We say nothing about what has just passed between us. When we go back up to the fire, he asks where I have put the Keflex -- saying it _cheeflet_, as usual -- and I find it for him, then finish drying off my thighs with the dry part of the blanket. It will need to be rinsed or cleaned off somehow before we can use it for sleeping, but I somehow don't think that will be a problem tonight.

He has dressed before me, and once he has taken his pill, washing it down with a tiny sip of water from the rapidly emptying waterskin, I hear him laugh. I pause in the act of pulling my jeans back on, and see what he is laughing at. It seems we've been longer than we thought.

The log has completely burned away.


End file.
